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This story reprinted from PanachePages.com
by Rochelle HagelAlways...Patsy Cline will be presented by Comfort Theatre Company at the Rushmore Civic Center Auditorium on Saturday, November 11 at 7:30 p.m. The Comfort Theatre Company is owned by Brian and Kaija Bonde and based in Sioux Falls. Always...Patsy Cline is Comfort Theatre’s first and only theater production to date. It opened in July, 1998. Since then, they have presented the musical in more than 30 communities and have around 100 performances under their belt when private bookings like conventions are included. “We’ve produced a couple concerts but ‘Patsy Cline’ has kept us much busier than we expected,” Brian said. “We’d like to be doing other shows,” Kaija added. “But we just don’t have the time.” Bringing quality musical theater to rural audiences is the goal of the company, they said. “The quality of our show is comparable to what you’d see in the Pavilion in Sioux Falls,” Brian said. “We thought there was a real need to get musical theater out around South Dakota,” Kaija said. In the future, they hope to tour more musical shows like Always... in South Dakota. “We want to bring familiar recognizable theater to rural South Dakota,” Kaija said. “When we say ‘comfort theater,’ it’s like comfort food. It’s music that makes you feel good.” This doesn’t necessarily mean productions that everybody has seen or heard of already, like Oklahoma, she said, but, ,”like Patsy Cline. Nobody’s heard of ‘Always...Patsy Cline,’ but everybody knew the music.” “We are looking at shows along the same lines as ‘Patsy Cline, although those are harder to come by — especially ones with smaller casts that are easily tourable,” she said. Always...Patsy Cline, which was written by Ted Swindley, is based on the true story of the friendship that developed between Cline and Louise Seger, one of her many fans. Seger went to hear Cline sing at a club in Texas and invited her to her home after the show. The two exchanged letters until Cline’s death in a plane crash in 1963. Some of the dialogue is based on interviews with Seger who is still living in Houston. Much of the Cline material is taken from tapes of her live performances. The show closes with Seger’s reading of an actual letter that Cline wrote to her. “The character of Louise tells great stories and audiences seem to relate to the idea of this person getting to meet her idol,” Kaija said. “Everybody has that dream of getting to know her idol and having a relationship with them.” The show features 25 Patsy Cline songs. The role of Cline is performed by Bonde. Seger is played by Jill Pillar, also of Sioux Falls. The cast of two actors is joined on stage in many shows by a live band, The Poker Alice Band, a long-time favorite of South Dakotans, from the southeastern corner of the state. The Poker Alice Band includes Larry Rohrer on bass, Owen Dejong on fiddle, Nick Schwebach on steel and electric guitar, Steve Petersen on drums and Denny Jensen on lead guitar. Listeners of South Dakota Public Radio may be familiar with Rohrer, Dejong of Morning Classics and Schwebach from Jazz Nightly. A piano player, Gail Tallaksen, also performs in Always...Patsy Cline but she is not part of the Poker Alice Band. Boyd Bristow, also part of the South Dakota Acoustic Christmas line-up, is music director and sound designer. Kevin Brick is technical director. Brian Bonde is director and producer. All of the talent involved in presenting in Always...Patsy Cline is from South Dakota. Presenting the show with a cast entirely from South Dakota was a goal they knew would be easy to meet. “That wasn’t ever a question, we always knew that there was enough talent to fill this bill easily,” Kaija said. “South Dakota artists can hold their own against anybody in the country and I think that with this show it is especially true,” Brian said. “When it comes to South Dakota arts I am very biased,” he said. The Bonde's have seen productions of Always...Patsy Cline in Nashville, Denver, Chicago and Red Lodge, MT. It ran in Denver for four years — the longest running show ever in Denver. Brian is confident that Comfort Theatre’s production is as good as any. “I would put our cast up against anybody,” he said. “People are going to see as good a show as they are going to see anywhere in the country.” “I’ll be biased — Kaija can’t say this, but I can — I’ve never seen anybody play the part (of Cline) better than Kaija can.” “I make him say that,” she said. One of the most exciting and challenging aspects of producing Always... Patsy Cline is bringing actors and musicians to the stage at the same time, Brian said. Bands are usually in an orchestra pit, behind a curtain or otherwise hidden from the audience. “We’ve blended the musicians and actors and for the musicians, it was an unusual thing to be on stage and have a thousand eyes on them at one time,” he said. “We’ve had to learn a lot about music and they’ve had to learn about being on stage.” “Poker Alice is a part of the show — they’re as much a part of the show as the actors,” he said. “It’s been a fun experience to join different parts of the arts.” “It’s exciting to do and it’s also very exciting to watch.” The Bonde’s are both from South Dakota. Brian grew up in Flandreau. He went to college at Augustana and graduate school at Stanford. Kaija grew up in Sioux Falls and went to college at the University of South Dakota and Augustana. They met onstage at an audition for the Sioux Falls Community Playhouse. They also got married on stage there. “We met under that spotlight and we decided we should get married under that spotlight,” Kaija said. “We had our reception in the lobby.” They have one daughter, Suzannah, 15, and two sons, Elijah, seven and Aaron who is three years old. Brian is vice president of Children’s Care Hospital and School. Kaija is a full-time mom during the week. “Aaron has special needs; it’s a blessing that I can stay at home with him,” she said.
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